Historically, decorative and functional panels have been made from wood. By way of example, wooden shutters of various designs have been used for many years in home construction.
Decorative wooden panels (such as shutters) which are used for exterior purposes (and thus subjected to a wide range of conditions) must be treated for purposes of protecting the wood and to maintain a pleasing decorative appearance.
In recent years, various companies have manufactured plastic shutters as a substitute or alternate for wooden shutters. Properly constructed, plastic shutters have numerous advantages including the general lack of maintainence required. Plastic shutters can be manufactured by a variety of techniques. for example, solid core plastic shutters can simply be molded from suitable plastics. Some plastic shutters, because of their design, can be manufactured with a hollow core defined by rather thin exterior plastic walls. Also, plastic can be used to coat shutter-like wood cores. Other plastic shutters can be made by forming a thin sheet of rigid plastic material into a generally rectangular, pan-shaped shroud which is thereafter attached to a suitable frame (e.g. a wooden or plastic frame) by means of adhesives, fasteners, or the like.
The present invention represents an improvement over the latter type of shutter construction.
In the latter type of shutter construction, it is common to bond the supporting frame to the plastic shroud, usually by means of an adhesive which is used to bond the shroud completely around the outer rim of the supporting frame. Although one might assume that a firm bond between the entire frame and the shroud is desirable, creating a firm bond between the entire frame and shroud actually results in certain disadvantages. One disadvantage of substantially completely bonding the entire supporting frame to the shroud is that the rates of expansion and contraction of the frame and the shroud are not identical. As a consequence, shutters of this type have a tendency to become distorted after a period of time, particularly in the colder climates. This detracts from the appearance of the shutter.